PixlBit

Your favorite holiday is coming up?  It's my birthday, right? :)

I haven't even been keeping up with GamerGate at all.  I kind of feel bad, like I'm not doing my job as a games 'journalist'.  But I'm just having too much fun playing Professor Layton vs. Pheonix Wright.

Link's Awakening is my all-time favorite Zelda game.  I'd love to see a remake.  I wouldn't change the story too much or extend it too much or anything though.  I did think the same thing as you when I played Link Between Worlds, that Link's Awakening would look great in this style.

I loved the original's island setting.  It set a certain mood.  Also, rudiementary as it was, I also liked some of the text.  It was almost poetic.  "Earth, Wind, Sea, Sky, All on the lid of a dreamer's eye."  Some of the crytic text even explains what happens to the island when you wake up: "Somday thou may recall this island in the waking world.  That memory must be the dream world."  That and the secret ending you can get in the GBC version explains things a bit, I think. 

But yeah I love that game.  All the great things about Link to the Past in a more compact form.  Great for replaying, too.  Not too short and not too long.

I didn't get into RPGs until Final Fantasy 4 (2) on the Super Nintendo.  Anything before was too daunting or not interesting enough.  Either that or I was just too young.  Although my friend and I did have fun taking turns playing Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy on the NES at his house.  But I never felt the need to buy those myself.

We used graph paper to make maps back then as well.  This was before strategy guides or GameFAQs, so us 'old folk' had to do things differently.  At PAX I played a tablet game from Cartoon Network called Adventure Time: Game Wizard.  You use real graph paper to draw levels, and the game uses the tablet camera to read your map and make a 2-D platforming level in the game!  I thought it was quite clever.

Did you know that a couple of years ago, a new Wizardry game came out on the PS3?  It was a download only title, and I had to review it.  I don't think I did a very good job.  Those games are hard!  --Cary

No it's a top-loading NES.  It's a new model NES Nintendo released after the Super Nintendo.

Wow I'm surprised you didn't know about Chocobo Hot and Cold.  It's actually a pretty big deal.

Curtain Call is more of the same, just with more music.  But keep in mind that Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy was my Game of the Year in 2012, so it's very good.

This is one of the three Final Fantasy games that I really like.  My favorites in order are FF6, FF4, and FF9.  FF9 is what FF7 and 8 should've been. 

Quina's not completely useless.  Quina is basically the 'blue mage' of the group.  When you eat an enemy, you learn its attacks.  Similar to Strago in FF6.

When my brother Jeff was little, he would watch me play FF9, and when I was done for the day, I'd hand him the controller and let him walk around playing the card game.  He LOVED the card game.  Thanks to him, I got all the best cards. :)

FF9 has another awesome mini-game that you forgot to mention: Chocobo Hot & Cold.  This was almost a game in itself, and was like a treasure hunt that used the world map cleverly.

I'm looking forward to Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy Curtain Call, which releases soon (the day after my birthday, actually).  --Cary

Kirby's Adventure is pretty amazing for a NES game.  It's one of the last NES games ever made and it's the largest in size, memory-wise.  I actually didn't play it when it first came out, as I was knee-deep in SNES territory by then.  Really, the Kirby game that made me be a fan was actually Kirby's Dream Course!  I did go back and play Adventure in college, though.

It's a lot of fun, but not near as much fun as E3.  But it does have a more relaxed atmosphere.

I wish PAX wasn't so loud, because then I could've told you about what audible humor there was.  It definitely has Behemoth's humor.